


A Long and Winding Road

by cynatnite



Series: The Barton Initiative [13]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Attempts to link Set-Up to Bourne to Captain America and all that, Episode: S&H The Set-Up, Hutch met the original Jarvis and Howard Stark a few ages ago.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 09:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20673503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynatnite/pseuds/cynatnite
Summary: The truth comes out as Steve comes to realize his own connections.Maybe Starsky takes it better than he should or maybe this crazy story just hasn't sunk in yet. But, he doesn't mind it that much. Hutch worries about Starsky, as usual.





	A Long and Winding Road

**Author's Note:**

> This story ties into an older series, Starsky & Hutch. Long story short, Starsky and Hutch retired and are now a married couple. The episode it mostly ties into is a two-parter titled "The Set-Up". Seeing the episodes is not necessary, but it does help to explain a few things regarding the details. The Set-Up is not that great and left a lot of loose ends. I just decided to put my own spin on it. 
> 
> For non-fans, Starsky & Hutch are two cops in the 70's who live in each other's pockets and catch bad guys for a living. They are closer than brothers and the show proves it. 
> 
> For fans of S&H, most of this story is told without the guys with the exception of the last few chapters. It's not necessary to read the entire work unless you want to get a better flavoring of the characters. Starsky & Hutch are only in the final chapters which will be tagged as such. 
> 
> All mistakes are my own.

After getting back to the Tower, Steve stood back and watched Jim Street take Brian into his arms. They seemed to be in their own world as Jim softly spoke to Brian, reassured him and they rested their foreheads together taking that moment to commit to one another again.

He glanced at Phil who was near the bar talking with Clint. Their eyes met and the understanding was clear. Steve felt privileged to be a witness to a group of amazing people becoming a family.

As they were headed to the conference room, Steve went to Clint.

“I’d like to sit in on this one, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah,” Clint answered. “I don’t see why not.”

Steve followed the group inside. Just as other times, the significant others stepped out leaving the brothers and Phil in the room.

Brian stood and cleared his throat.

“I have some stuff to add,” Brian said. He flitted his eyes over each brother.

“Go ahead,” Cory stated. “We’re all ears.”

All eyes were on him and Brian glanced at Steve who gave him a confident nod.

“Jarvis, send copies of these notes to everyone,” Brian told the AI.

“Of course, Mr. Gamble.”

“What is this, Bri?” Clint asked as he scrolled through the notes.

When the content was displayed in the floating screen above the table, Brian began.

“It’s about the castle,” Brian said.

“The facility where Hirsch was at?” Phil inquired.

“Yeah, but it was a real castle with turrets and everything,” Brian answered. “It was out in the desert just outside of LA. I remember hearing something about it when I joined the LAPD.”

“Continue, please,” Phil said.

“The bust was real, but few records. The only person I knew might know about it is a friend who runs a bar. She clearly remembered because it involved a couple of cop friends and their captain wrote up these notes. The whole thing was buried when the Feds took over. It was just forgotten.”

“Until now,” Will murmured.

Brian brought up the first page.

“It all started with an assassination. A mob guy was due to testify about some west coast operations. It was sensitive enough that they brought him in in the last place anyone would look for him. He rode in on the back of a semi.” Brian saw his brothers scrolling through the notes and continued. “Everyone was gunning for him. He was going to bring down some major players and entire operations that’s been running for decades. It was expected he’d name cops and some politicians.”

“Who the hell was this guy?” James asked. He hadn’t bothered to look at his phone.

“Joe Durniak,” Brian stated.

“What?” Steve loudly exclaimed. Everyone turned to look at him. “Are you sure?”

“You know him, Steve?” Clint looked at Phil and then back at Steve.

“If it’s the same guy, we grew up together.” Steve straightened and walked towards the table. “Jarvis do you have a photo to go with the name?”

The picture was of an older man that seemed familiar.

“Any younger ones?” Steve asked.

Then another of a much younger man.

“Damn, that’s him,” Steve said in a low voice. He looked at the group. “It was Brooklyn. Bucky and I were practically inseparable, but Joey and a few others…we were kids playing stickball and throwing pennies back then.”

The memories were still fresh in Steve’s mind. Sometimes he missed those days.

“Anyway, we grew up and mostly went our separate ways. Bucky and I went in the Army. Joey was an only son so he stayed in the neighborhood. Last I heard he was having some legal troubles, but this would make sense if the police were looking the other way. Bribes were pretty normal back then.”

“Seems damn convenient if you ask me,” James said folding his arms.

“I don’t see how it’s connected to this investigation,” Phil responded. “But we’ll definitely keep it in mind. Let’s keep going.”

“The assassin called in to the local precinct not far from where he was. Captain Dobey answered and sent his best. They were the ones who were protecting Durniak and according to the notes the FBI suspected them of arranging the hit. Dobey cleared it up in the notes with what little evidence they were able to maintain.” Brian ran his hand through his hair before continuing. “Anyway, come to find out the assassin named “TN” in the notes, confesses to the killing because according to him, Durniak killed his wife.”

“That’s got to be fucking impossible,” Cory said. “It says here that Durniak was in full lockdown for months beforehand. He’d not had any contact with his mob buddies.”

“Yeah, so they started running down TN’s story and it was a complete bust. Everything he told them about himself did not pan out one bit. All they had was some omitted slides from a bank where he withdrew money to buy a gun.”

“It says here an unnamed source provided the location of this castle,” Clint said without looking up from his phone.

“My guess is the unnamed source is a small-time asset who worked at the bank. Anyway, some crazy pilot flew them to an old airstrip not far,” Brian added. He shook his head and smiled a little. “These two cops, an insane pilot and TN fucking stormed this castle.”

“Some major balls of steel right there,” James smirked.

“You know,” Aaron said. “I would bet this wasn’t the first time these cops did something like this.”

“According to Minnie, it wasn’t the first or the last,” Brian answered. “They took down James Gunther. He used to be one of the wealthiest industrialists in the world.”

“I remember writing a paper on him,” Phil said. “There was no mention of the names of the officers involved, but his downfall even impacted the stock market. Two federal judges and three state senators were sent to prison as a result.”

“Well, according to the notes the entire operation at the castle was quietly put away. The victims were given new identities and the perps taken out of the state.” Brian sat down. “No mention of Hirsch in the notes, but it sounds exactly like the same op Coulson uncovered.”

“Yes,” Phil agreed. “We still need to track down the people who were there, if they’re still alive.”

“So, how does this connect to Hillcott?” James asked.

“The two cops.” Clint got to his feet. “Hillcott knew about them according to what Phil and Marta found. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch that he took what he had to Hirsch.”

“They didn’t meet until ’87 according to what Skye found,” Cory offered.

“That may be something we never discover,” Will said. “It was a long time ago and there’s bound to be gaps.”

“At least we know who the officers are now,” Phil said. Their two photos were brought up on the screen with their names.

Steve was about to say something when his phone rang. He stepped away as Phil relayed the information about Hillcott to the brothers.

“_Captain_,” Jarvis said. “_You left instructions on how former acquaintances were to contact you.”_

“Yes, Jarvis. Nothing ever came of it.”

“_Until now, sir_.”

There was a brief pause and then an unfamiliar voice.

_“My father was Daniel Joseph Starsky. Back in the day, when Captain America was a runt before the war, my old man worked at a soda shop at the corner of Dumont and Georgia Avenues. It was a run-down dump with a dentist office upstairs. Usually it was because Bucky Barnes brought Steve Rogers because he was fighting off some bully and Rogers lost every damn time. They’d take him to the old dentist to get patched up. Tell him that.”_

Steve could barely catch his breath as he listened. His heart pounding, he looked up and saw more information being relayed by Phil to the brothers.

“Jarvis, don’t let him leave. I’m on my way down right now.”

He stopped at the door and turned around.

“You’re about to get all your questions answered,” he told the room. “Don’t move.”

~*~

After he was gone, Clint glanced at his brothers and shrugged his shoulders.

“Anyone have a clue what’s going on?” he asked.

The only one that didn’t shake his head was Brian.

“Bri?” Clint sat back down.

“Can I tell you later?”

Seeing him shrinking in the chair a bit, Clint nodded. “Sure.”

The door opened and rather than it being Steve, it was Marta. She walked over to Aaron and stood close to him.

“Dr. Banner and I were able to compare the DNA from Aaron and the samples Dr. Hillcott acquired. He took a third trip to Los Angeles in May 1979 and his signature is on the medical records of a police officer shot in the line of duty.”

“Wait a sec,” Cory leaned forward. “How in the hell are you getting all of this information? No such thing as digital records back then.”

“Natasha Romanov aided our investigation and provided hard copies of the records,” Phil answered.

Cory closed his mouth and said nothing more. He was starting to understand the woman he was growing closer.

“What did you find out, Dr. Shearing?” Phil asked.

The brothers had stilled to the point of absolute silence.

“There was enough genetic information to confirm the donor is the police officer, David Starsky.”

It was a moment before anyone spoke.

“Are you sure?” Clint asked.

“Bruce conformed my results. If Mr. Starsky is amiable, we can do further tests, but there is little doubt.”

No one spoke for a few minutes.

“So what now?” James asked. “We call him or go see him?”

“And what?” Will said. “Drop on his doorstep and say “congrats, it’s six boys”?”

“Besides,” Aaron added. “We don’t know how he’s involved. May have been his idea to begin with.”

“If it was, you’d think at least one or two of us would have met him,” Cory offered.

“Brian,” Clint said. “Any ideas?”

“No.”

Brian was acting out of character and Clint debated on pushing him about it.

The door came open and Steve entered the room. Everyone was on their feet immediately.

“What’s going on?” James asked.

“You said we’d get some answers,” Will stated.

“Uh, I think so.” Steve saw the anxious look on their faces. “It’s just weird because I knew his father.”

“Whose?” Clint asked.

“David Starsky.”

“What?” Brian exclaimed. He was out of his chair. “How?”

“We were kids together…me, Bucky, Joey and Danny…that is Danny Starsky.” Steve ran his hands through his hair still unable to believe it. “They look so much alike, too.”

“Steve, is he here?”

“Yeah, with his partner…I mean husband. He married his partner, Ken Hutchinson.”

“Where are they?” Phil asked.

“I stuck them in one of the empty suites on the floor above us. I didn’t think it was a good idea to bring them here and see all of you at once.”

“Good idea,” Clint said. He looked at his brothers. “One of us has to explain all of this to them.”

“It should be you,” Cory said. “You started it all and got us together.”

Clint glanced at Phil who was of absolutely no help at all. Then he looked at his brothers.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Will said.

“He’ll lose his shit if all of us walks in the room,” James smirked.

It was Brian that got Clint’s attention. He seemed to hold himself back. Clint nodded and took a deep breath.

“Phil, I’d like you along if everyone’s okay with that.”

Seeing no objection from anyone else, Phil nodded.

Steve opened the door and Phil and Clint followed him through it. On the elevator ride up, Clint could feel his heartbeat quicken. He took a deep breath to try to slow it down and felt a bit better when Phil took his hand.

The three stepped out of the elevator and Clint halted in front of the door. On the other side of it was the donor, David Starsky.

“I need a minute,” Clint said in a low voice. He stepped back and turned around.

“Clint, it’s okay,” Steve said.

“Take your time,” Phil told him as he took his hand. “No matter what we find on the other side of the door, nothing changes for you or your brothers. You’re still a family.”

“Yeah, of course.” Clint took another deep breath and let it go.

Steve opened the door and Clint was the first one through it. He saw the men sitting on the couch and they got to their feet immediately.

“Holy shit,” said the curly-haired one. It was dark and peppered with grey. “Gamble?”

“It’s not him, Starsk.” The blond looked Clint over. “No tattoos or earrings.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Excuse me,” Phil figured it was time to intervene. “I think we need to clear some things up before we start.”

“You thought I was Brian?” Clint asked after finding his voice.

“We saw him a few hours ago,” the blond replied.

“You saw Brian?” Clint thought about it for a moment. Of course, it explained Brian’s behavior. They had been LA cops and it was likely they knew some of Brian’s activities. “Before we start, let’s get one thing straight. Brian is my brother. Nothing you or anyone else says will keep me from standing up for him. Plus, I’ll kick anyone’s ass who thinks they’re going to take some kind of vengeance out of his hide. Are we clear?”

“Fine,” the blond answered. He nudged his partner who mumbled a “Whatever”.

“Why don’t we have a seat,” Phil offered.

“No, why don’t we start with some names?” the blond pointed out. “I’m Ken Hutchinson and this is my husband, Dave Starsky. You?”

“Clint Barton and my husband, Phil Coulson. Guess we all know Steve Rogers.”

Steve headed to the kitchen. “I’ll get some beers.”

The four men sat with Starsky and Hutch on the couch. Phil and Clint took the nearby chairs. Steve brought the beers and excused himself from the room.

“Captain Hutchinson,” Phil began.

“Hutch…you can call me Hutch.”

“Hutch,” Phil corrected. “Why did you come here to Stark Tower to begin with?”

“It seems that Starsky and I share the same friend with Gamble. Minnie Kaplan.”

“She came to see us and told us about his request for some notes our captain took regarding that case.” Starsky studied Clint while he answered Phil’s question. “When she mentioned Jarvis, Hutch put it together.”

“Jarvis isn’t that well-known to the public,” Clint stated.

“I knew Tony Stark’s father,” Hutch answered. “My father and him did a bit of business back in the day. I met the original Jarvis. With that and Tony’s own celebrity, it was easy to add up.”

“But you didn’t come straight here, did you?” Clint asked. He was acting on a hunch and the way the two former cops were looking at him, he wasn’t far off.

“Being a cop doesn’t go away overnight,” Starsky said. “We caught sight of him leaving Stark Tower and followed. Had a little conversation. He likes his secrets.”

Clint clutched his beer tighter and was about to reply when Hutch spoke up.

“Why the interest in this old case? I think we deserve that much.”

“It’s a long story,” Phil offered. “If you’ll be patient, Clint can explain.”

His husband turned his patient gaze on him and Clint took a drink from the bottle. Of course, Phil was right as usual.

“I had an uncle,” Clint began. “Carmine Polito.”

“Wait,” Hutch said. “The same one who was mayor of Camden, New Jersey and went to prison? I remember reading about it in the papers.”

“Yes, he got out a few years later. Anyway, some time later he tracked me down. That’s another story. Just before he passed away he told me that my mother had gone to some fertility clinic. The old man was scheming to make a few bucks and she went along with it.”

“What does this have to do with us?” Hutch asked.

“Please, let him explain,” Phil said.

“She had more than one baby,” Clint said resuming the story. “They were all adopted out except for me. So, I went on the hunt and found us all.”

“Just how many of you are there?” Starsky asked. “You and Gamble.”

“Six.”

“Are you serious?” Hutch whispered. “Even back then, for sextuplets…”

“She never made it to term. We were born at thirty-two weeks.” Clint could see the questions forming in their eyes and he kept talking. He wasn’t ready to answer too many of them right now. “We were able to track them, Phil and I with some help. We had thought one of us was dead until he broke into Stark Tower. Then we find out the CIA had experimented on him and fucked with his genes to get the super agent they wanted, kind of a Captain America type. He was considered mentally deficient and unadoptable. The Army recruiters fudged his test scores and got him in. He caught the attention of the CIA because he could outshoot pretty much anyone.”

“That’s some improvement,” Hutch observed. “To be able to break into this place.”

“When we all finally got together, the idea was to bring down the people responsible for what happened him and the rest of us.” Clint leaned forward. “You see, someone got the idea that this one set of genes are so fucking great that they wanted to make more of them, to see what happens. They used that genetic material to fertilize Momma’s eggs and implanted them in her. They adopted us all out and our brother, Aaron, was the one they took the furthest with everything they knew.”

“You think it’s one of ours,” Starsky flat out stated.

“Yeah, we think the doctors that was at the fertility clinic where Momma gave birth were also the same ones who took your genetic material. It was after you were shot and being operated on back in 1979.”

“This castle,” Phil explained, “involved an Albert Hirsch who was also directly involved in the CIA operations we’ve told you about. At some point, Dr. Dan Hillcott supplied your genetic material and likely even had a hand in fertilizing Clint’s mother.”

Starsky smirked a little and shook his head. “It’s a good tale, but from the looks of you that had to have happened years after my shooting.”

“Yeah, because he spent that time doing experiments,” Clint answered. “We’ve got his records indicating as such. Not only that, they used your DNA for biological testing at a lab in Fort Detrick.”

“Dr. Marta Shearing explained that they had your DNA to carry live virus,” Phil explained. “Several people died as a result. They weaponized your DNA, Captain Starsky.”

It took a moment for the information to sink in and Starsky looked over at Hutch. He stood.

“I need a minute, please. Just some time to wrap my brain around what you’ve told me. Think you could send one of your doctors to explain the science in more detail?”

“Yes,” Phil answered. “He’ll be down directly.”

Clint got to his feet. “Jarvis, get them anything they need.”

“_Of course, Agent Barton_,” Jarvis answered.

He was about to leave, when Starsky called his name.

“Clint Barton, you’re Hawkeye, one of the Avengers.”

“I am.”

Clint didn’t wait for a response and left with Phil close behind. 

Out in the hallway, Clint pulled Phil in and wrapped his arms around him. “I really need this before I talk to my brothers.”


End file.
